


Track Two - Komorebi

by TrebleandBass (May_Seward)



Series: Lost in Translation [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Viktor plays the cello for Yuuri, Yuuri and Viktor get to know each other, Yuuri plays the piano for Viktor, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-20
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-09-25 19:39:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,954
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9841010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/May_Seward/pseuds/TrebleandBass
Summary: Japanese: Ko·mo·re·bi (n.) The sunlight that filters through the leaves of the trees.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of my "Lost in Translation" musician AU.  
> Check out my tumblr trebelandbass

When Viktor had said “get to work”, Yuuri was expecting to head to Hill Castle and play the piano. Instead, citing jetlag, Viktor had taken a long nap and left Yuuri to explain the situation to his clueless family and then wonder what the hell he had gotten himself into.

The next morning, however, Viktor woke Yuuri up  ~~ nice and ~~ early, clipped Makkachin’s leash onto his collar and announced that he wanted to get to know Hasetsu.

It was still early spring and the cherry blossom trees were just coming into bloom, pink and full of promise. Sunlight filtered through the trees and bright patches of light reflected off of Viktor’s hair as they walked. At first, Viktor didn’t say much of importance - Yuuri had a feeling that would come later - and instead preferred to chatter away about nothing in particular. It was both a surprise and not that Viktor could talk for hours. The man was a commanding presence by reputation alone, but there was something about him that made it impossible not to listen, something that made it difficult to look away. Yuuri didn’t know where to look or what to think. His hero was walking beside him, he was home for the first time in years and those two things combined did wonders for his optimism. 

‘Yuuri, tell me,’ Viktor said as they looked out over the bay, leaning against the railings. ‘Do you compose your own music?’

So much for optimism. Yuuri’s gaze found his feet and stayed there, unwilling to look up at Viktor as he answered. ‘Not really,’ he replied truthfully but he felt like it cost something for him to do it. 

Viktor was silent for a moment. ‘Why not?’ he asked eventually.

Yuuri wondered how to explain being unable to compose to a man who had always done it so beautifully. ‘Well...’ Yuuri began. ‘It's just... Composition is so personal, you know. It has to come from the heart. It’s...’  _ Terrifying. Intimidating. _ ‘It’s difficult to know what you want to say with all that pressure, you know? I don’t know how to translate what’s in my heart into notes and phrases. It's easier for me when I have something to work with.’

‘And what is in your heart, Yuuri?’ Viktor asked and Yuuri finally looked up at him. There was no judgement in his eyes. Nothing that made Yuuri feel lesser except his very presence and that was hardly something Viktor could help. 

Yuuri stared for a moment. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘I can’t explain it.’ Viktor nodded and looked back out at the sea. Terrified he had disappointed Viktor, that the other man would up and leave now that he realised how much of a lost cause Yuuri was, he added, ‘You can though.’

Viktor looked at him, one silver eyebrow raised. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Your music,’ Yuuri rambled before he could stop himself. ‘I don’t know why but it seems to understand.’

Viktor smiled at that and pushed himself off the railing. ‘I want you to show me every place you love, Yuuri,’ he announced. ‘Home is where the heart is, right? If I am to be your tutor, I need you to show me your heart.’

* * *

Yuuri tried his best. He walked Viktor and Makkachin all around Hasetsu until they ended up where he knew they were always going to be. Hill Castle Music Studio.

Yuuri had explained as much as he could to Yuko the previous night, knowing that if anyone would understand it was her. It didn’t make the introductions any less awkward though. To her credit, Yuko tried her best to keep it together. She only asked Viktor to sign one picture, which Yuuri thought was an impressive show of restraint on her part.

Viktor smiled and laughed and charmed his way through the entire conversation and by the end of it, Yuko and her husband had agreed to allow Yuuri and Viktor to practice there whenever they chose. Viktor looked like a man who was used to getting what he wanted and Yuuri found that this side of Viktor, the side that Yuuri had only just met, the human being Viktor Nikiforov was just as captivatingly mysterious as the man Yuuri had watched perform on stage since they were both children. He had been given glimpses, he supposed, listening to the pieces Viktor composed and performed, but before they had no context, a name and a face and that was it. Now, Yuuri still wasn’t sure what that context was, but he knew that he wanted to find out.

When Yuko finally backed off, content to just watch from the sidelines, Viktor picked out a cello from Hill Castle’s small collection and settled himself behind it. ‘Yuuri, you said that my music understood,’ he said. ‘Which piece?’

Yuuri thought for a moment. Truthfully he didn’t know, not really. It depended on the weather, or the time of day. Obviously his mood was a factor but Yuuri was so honestly confused at the moment that he couldn’t think of just one to encompass everything. In the end, he picked out the first one that came into his head. 

‘ _ Nachalo _ ,’ Yuuri decided. ‘Right now, at least,’ he clarified. Viktor smiled softly and nodded, taking a moment to compose himself. When he began to play, it was a quiet uplifting piece, befitting the springtime air and their new situation, slow and high ascending arpeggios full of tentative hope, testing new ground, forging new paths. It wasn’t like  _ Stay Close To Me _ , a piece full of urgency and intensity. The way Viktor played  _ Nachalo _ , it was like he had all the time in the world. It was perfect.

Yuuri and Yuko both burst into applause when Viktor finished, which the cellist accepted graciously with a short bow of his head.

When Hill Castle had gone quiet again, Yuuri whispered, ‘Why did you leave?’

For the barest of seconds, Viktor’s gaze snapped to him, sharp, like he hadn’t expected the question. Then it was gone and he was standing up, bow still in hand.

‘Why did you pick that one, Yuuri?’ Viktor asked.

Yuuri shrugged, embarrassed he didn’t have a better answer than, ‘Wouldn’t you have?’

Viktor apparently did not mind. He laughed and came over to the piano, leaning up behind where Yuuri was sitting on the bench, placing one hand on the polished black wood above the keyboard so his mouth came to rest almost unsettlingly close to Yuuri’s ear. ‘I understand, I think,’ Viktor murmured. ‘Though I would have liked to have heard it from you.’

‘Sorry,’ Yuuri mumbled. ‘I can’t explain it better than you and your cello did.’

‘I suppose not,’ he replied softly and stood up straight again. ‘I want you to play that song for me Yuuri, on the piano. I want to hear what  _ Nachalo _ means to you.’  

Outside, cherry blossom petals fell like snow and Yuuri watched them fall, wondering how he could possibly beat Viktor Nikiforov’s interpretation of the man’s own song. This right now, the way his heart pounded in his chest with joy, the way having Viktor watching him over his shoulder made the hairs at the back of his neck stand on end, electrified, is what  _ Nachalo _ meant to Yuuri. Stealing a breath, he began to play the song with his left hand. He had heard the piece enough times that he could do a pretty good rendition if he concentrated.

‘Why did you put an accent on that note?’ Viktor asked as Yuuri finished a phrase. 

‘Which one?’ Yuuri asked.

‘The G flat you in that last bar,’ Viktor clarified. ‘You accented it. Why?’

‘Because you did,’ Yuuri answered, for once certain of the answer.

‘No, Yuuri,’ Viktor murmured quietly, leaning close again. ‘Don’t copy me. Take what I did and make it your own. Like you did before.’

Before as in Yuuri’s rendition of  _ Stay Close To Me _  that Viktor had seen accidentally and after months of practice.

‘I... uh, I haven’t practiced Nachalo in a long time,’ Yuuri admitted.

Viktor was so close now that when he shook his head, Yuuri felt his silver hair tickle his face. ‘It doesn’t matter. You know the notes. You know the feeling. Put them together so they work for you and you alone.’ 

Yuuri frowned, tried to think of how he could do as Viktor said. ‘It’s a lot of pressure, especially since I’m playing to you. This is your composition. I don’t think-’

Viktor silenced him with a soft hand on the shoulder that startled him like a jolt of electricity. ‘Music is about what you feel, Yuuri. Not what you think. Surely you had figured that out by now.’

The truth was, Viktor was right and Yuuri knew it. Despite all the technicalities; keeping track of accents and accidentals, key changes and rhythms, everything came down to emotion. To telling a story.

Yuuri closed his eyes and played the song again, picturing in his mind the way that he had felt earlier, walking with Viktor and Makkachin, talking and enjoying the sights, getting a feel for each other as people in the flesh. As he moved into the second repeat of the first section he went further, remembering what it felt like coming home after so long away in America, the way the early spring air tasted when cherry blossoms filled the air, how soon the trees would lose their flowers and how by the time summer came around they would be replaced with bright green leaves. He hoped Viktor would still be around when that happened, that he would keep his promise.

Promise was a good word for this piece, Yuuri thought. The promise of spring, Viktor’s promise about teaching him, a smaller more private thing for just Yuuri, a promise to himself that he wouldn’t let himself or his family down again, that he would return to the stage better than before. Everything came rushing out, all rolled into one and the song began to feel slightly different. The piano was both urgent and gentle under Yuuri’s expert hands, the sound able to alter from one extreme in pitch and volume to the other. Spontaneously, and because it felt right, Yuuri switched the melody to the right hand, transposing it up an octave and adding harmonies in the lower register in the form of simple, sparse chords. His unpracticed hand stumbled over the notes until he found his rhythm again, teaching his fingers how to play in the higher register so he could focus on the harmonies, alternating between different intervals until they slotted into place, fitting the feeling Yuuri was trying to convey like pieces of a puzzle. For the briefest moment, Yuuri was even able to ignore the fact that  _ Viktor freaking Nikiforov _ was standing right there, watching him play and just focused on the  _ feeling _ of it. The presence of the man standing behind him, the way the afternoon sunlight cast a soft glow over everything, the sound of the piano keys and before he knew it, Yuuri had run out of notes.

He finished softly, tentatively and added a slow sustained chord at the end to tie the whole thing back to the beginning again and let it ring out into silence.

Then he allowed himself to freak out a little that  _ Viktor freaking Nikiforov _ had just watched him play and turned to the man with his heart fluttering against his ribs.

Viktor had one hand on his chin, index finger curled under his lip in thought. ‘That,’ he said finally. ‘That is something I can work with.’ His face split into an endearingly wide grin. 

Yuuri found himself grinning back.

**Author's Note:**

> Ah yes, Viktor "what even is personal space" Nikiforov. How I adore him.


End file.
